Mama Beech

Firstly - apologies for no blog last weekend! I knew we had a visitor to help conclude a current chapter in our Child Led experience (see last blog ) and wanted to include it.  LAST week was celebration week  which basically means back to back campfires and 400 children loving life on hot chocolate and toasted Marshmallows! No matter what alternatives I offer - the mallows remain the treat of choice! This term was our first time having simultaneous campfires, one in The Copse and one into the Wildlife Garden - or - one in The Copse and one Under The Trees, as all three Forest Schools are up and running and embedded in the timetable now! My colleagues have found their feet, are developing their sites and their practice, and are forging forward. So it was 12 fires across 3 sites in 4 days with no issues at all! THIS week (just gone), was off timetable and there was some time to catch up on admin, check the site, promote the training we're hosting next May AND invite a visitor in...

When I switched to two days on site and two days working from home I thought I might get bored.... Whereas over four days I would usually facilitate 14x75min Forest School Sessions, fitting planning and admin in around them, now I have 7 sessions on site and 2 days at home doing the paperwork etc. Adhering to the 'essential travel' only guidance I don't travel 50 miles to use the school computer, and as I have no classroom, just basecamp, I usually open up the laptop in the staff room while at school. Again, I now don't spend any time in the staff room unless it's to grab a cuppa! I don't need to loiter in the building at all. But as we all know, the danger of paperwork at home is that it's not a 9-5 log on! Last week I scanned in over 200 documents at home, old Nature Detective  sheets and other guides, information, and spotter pictures that I have collected over the years, many that I can no longer find online! Having scanned them, I spent the following da...

  Is it me or does this year not feel particularly new?!  So far 2021 is a hangover of 2020. Not much 'out with the old and in with the new' to celebrate! Where as January is usually filled with the determination (and struggle!) to make changes for the better, this year it's overwhelmed by a want and a need to get back to the norm. I know for a lot of Forest Schools Lockdown means shut down - and I am so sorry that small businesses offering such a amazing opportunities to children are having to take a step back. I'm also heartbroken at how many children will be missing out on those opportunities. There are pros and cons to running a Forest School within a Primary School. Working around other peoples timetables and, for some, working with other people's themes and plans can be difficult and frustrating. But many have at least managed to continue to provide sessions because they are based on a school site. In Lockdown March 2020 we kept minimal staff on site and the r...

Anyone who has visited this blog before, followed Chartham Forest School on  twitter , or found posts on facebook will know that even though we offer Forest School sessions at our school, we are not exactly facilitating  Forest School   at the moment. After the first Lockdown in March this year we made a decision regarding reopening in  June  - that classes would be outside as much as possible.  This was driven by two main facts: T he first being that the outdoor environment was safer than the indoor environment. Inside we had to get to grips with one way systems and smaller classes, and children socially distanced in classrooms, alongside helping pupils learning at home. There was a lot to juggle.  The second being that different children had had different lockdown experiences. Some may have spent a lot of time in their garden, may have taken daily walks with their families,  may have had much more time to engage in self chosen activities and may...